February Recs Challenge, Day 13
It's snowing or sleeting or doing something winter-ish outside, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to work from home tomorrow! Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like it's going to be a lot of snow -- if anything, it will be freezing rain/sleet/mixed mess. Bleh.
Anyway, on to today's rec.
A Question by inell
Pairing: Draco/Neville
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Summary: Draco asks Neville a question. For wildestranger, prompt: virginity.
My Comments:
I don't read that much Neville fic, but what I like most about his character is his potential. In canon he's often a slightly pathetic figure, but we see hints of his courage and strength -- shades of the man he could become someday. I like to think he'd be something like the Neville in this fic.
He and Draco are now twenty-three, both teaching at Hogwarts, and Draco decides that Neville would be a good person to help him with a certain pesky little problem. Neville's response is perfectly in character -- a little awkward, a little shy, but still firm in his convictions. I should point out that I like this Draco too; he's changed a bit since the books (as he should have), and I like that we can see his vulnerability here.
Excerpt:
“Bloody hell,” Neville mutters as Malfoy tries to walk away again. “I didn’t say no!”
Malfoy turns around and fixes him with a glare that is worthy of Hermione during her monthly, which is about the scariest thing Neville can think of. The light from the sconces makes the scars on Malfoy’s face seem almost silver, and Neville can’t help but follow the path of them with his gaze as they twist around Malfoy’s cheek, jaw, and throat. He notices a faint pink stain on Malfoy’s cheeks and looks up to meet intense grey eyes.
“Are you done staring?” Malfoy asks snidely, hiding behind a sneer as always.
“I won’t take it,” Neville tells him quietly. He licks his lips and wonders how he ended up in this position before deciding it’s obviously because he’s the only professor that isn’t at least twice Malfoy’s age and his previous relationship with Terry Boot confirmed where his sexual interests lie. “But I’ll accept it.”
Finally, since I have not one but TWO Valentine's Day poems to share, I figured I'd post one today and one tomorrow. Enjoy. ♥
Variations on the Word Love
by Margaret Atwood
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
This word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
Anyway, on to today's rec.
A Question by inell
Pairing: Draco/Neville
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Summary: Draco asks Neville a question. For wildestranger, prompt: virginity.
My Comments:
I don't read that much Neville fic, but what I like most about his character is his potential. In canon he's often a slightly pathetic figure, but we see hints of his courage and strength -- shades of the man he could become someday. I like to think he'd be something like the Neville in this fic.
He and Draco are now twenty-three, both teaching at Hogwarts, and Draco decides that Neville would be a good person to help him with a certain pesky little problem. Neville's response is perfectly in character -- a little awkward, a little shy, but still firm in his convictions. I should point out that I like this Draco too; he's changed a bit since the books (as he should have), and I like that we can see his vulnerability here.
Excerpt:
“Bloody hell,” Neville mutters as Malfoy tries to walk away again. “I didn’t say no!”
Malfoy turns around and fixes him with a glare that is worthy of Hermione during her monthly, which is about the scariest thing Neville can think of. The light from the sconces makes the scars on Malfoy’s face seem almost silver, and Neville can’t help but follow the path of them with his gaze as they twist around Malfoy’s cheek, jaw, and throat. He notices a faint pink stain on Malfoy’s cheeks and looks up to meet intense grey eyes.
“Are you done staring?” Malfoy asks snidely, hiding behind a sneer as always.
“I won’t take it,” Neville tells him quietly. He licks his lips and wonders how he ended up in this position before deciding it’s obviously because he’s the only professor that isn’t at least twice Malfoy’s age and his previous relationship with Terry Boot confirmed where his sexual interests lie. “But I’ll accept it.”
Finally, since I have not one but TWO Valentine's Day poems to share, I figured I'd post one today and one tomorrow. Enjoy. ♥
Variations on the Word Love
by Margaret Atwood
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
This word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.